Cultural Dessert

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

'The Uncommon Reader' by Alan Bennett

26 November 2008

In 'The Uncommon Reader' Alan Bennett imagines The Queen happening upon a mobile library and developing a passion for reading books. As she becomes less interested in her royal duties and more interested in getting back to her latest novel her staff begin a battle to discourage her new obsession with the printed word. In a mere 120 pages of light, humorous prose, Bennett manages to say a lot about monarchy, the royal household, the benefits of reading and the importance of writing. Novelist Lionel Shriver described it very accuratelyas "A beguiling bedtime story for grown-ups."

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

'New Europe' by Michael Palin

25 November 2008

I've just finished reading 'New Europe' - Michael Palin's book from the TV series of the same name. Quite strange reading the book having not seen any of the programmes but it's a fascinating series of snapshots of Eastern Europe and the Balkans, nonetheless. It was particularly interesting to read Palin's thoughts about Slovenia, having been there myself in June - but slightly disappointing that this familiar territory was dealt with in the first chapter, rather than being something to look forward to. Because of the scale of the expedition - covering 20 countries from the Mediterranean to the Baltic - some countries are covered very briefly. And I think the book suffers a bit from the nature of the TV programme which clearly requires plenty of 'set piece' events and meetings: where I would have liked a bit more general background, the limited time allotted to some locations is dominated by meeting a local celebrity. Nevertheless Michael Palin's voice and personality come through clearly and are very easy to read. And I now feel much clearer about the differences between all those Eastern European countries we tend to lump together: I now know the difference between Macedonia and Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Moldova and Moldavia, Republica Serbska and Republika Slovenija etc. Education with a light touch.

Tim Minchin

25 November 2008

Whenever I hear a comic song I always think of Harris: "Well, you don't look for much of a voice in a comic song. You don't expect correct phrasing or vocalisation. You don't mind if a man does find out, when in the middle of a note, that he is too high, and comes down with a jerk. You don't bother about time. You don't mind a man being two bars in front of the accompaniment, and easing up in the middle of a line to argue it out with the pianist, and then starting the verse afresh. But you do expect the words." ('Three Men in a Boat' by Jerome K. Jerome, 1889) Australian comedian Tim Minchin is a modern master of the comic song (and has no problem remembering the words!). We had heard a lot about Tim Minchin at the Edinburgh Fringe but we hadn't managed to see his show so we took the opportunity last Saturday to see him closer to home at The Stables at Wavendon. Every time we go to The Stables I get nervous, as we enter the car park, that we're going to be part of a select few - it's a big auditorium that can often look embarrassingly empty. On Saturday I was relieved to see the car park stewards at full stretch to pack us in: it was almost a full house and clearly most of the audience were already much more familiar with Tim Minchin than we were. There were cheers of recognition at the beginning of most of his songs and plenty of people singing along. To his credit Minchin didn't play on this adulation, treating each lyrical 'reveal' as if it was the first time he had sung it. He is a brilliant pianist - demonstrating some of the most amazing boogie woogie piano playing I've seen. And he incorporates a wide range of musical styles/pastiches. I'm very wary of sounding a critical note given the vitriolic revenge Tim Minchin took on a savage review by the Guardian journalist Daoust, which is now an integral part of his show - but actually that song is a good case in point. Maybe I'm just getting old, but it seems a shame that much of Minchin's witty wordplay and excellent observational humour is undermined by resorting to unnecessary bad language to generate a cheap laugh. Modern stand-up comedy seems to have established a culture where it cannot be edgy and cool unless it involves swearing. Tim Minchin is by no means the worst offender but I think he'll be much funnier when he gets his own Radio 4 series and has to ditch the bad language.

Monday, November 17, 2008

Milton Keynes Sinfonia concert

17 November 2008

On Saturday I played with Milton Keynes Sinfonia in a concert which contrasted early and later works by those near contemporaries Richard Strauss and Ralph Vaughan-Williams. We started with the delightful ‘Serenade for Wind’ by Strauss – described by our conductor, David Knight, as ‘super-charged Haydn’. We were then joined by the wonderful soprano, Zoe South, for a thrilling performance of Strauss’s ‘Four Last Songs’ – delicate, powerful and immensely moving. (‘Beim Schlafengehen’ must be one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written.) After the strings played Vaughan-Williams’ ‘Variations on Dives & Lazurus’, we finished with his ‘Symphony No 6’ – a fiendishly difficult piece which manages to echo Shostakovich without ever straying from the distinctive VW sound. I thought we gave an impressive performance of an ambitious and interesting programme.

‘Alex’by Charles Peattie and Russell Taylor

17 November 2008

Investment banker ‘Alex’ is the star of a Daily Telegraph strip cartoon by Charles Peattie and Russell Taylor. Opportunely milking the current financial turmoil, Peattie and Taylor have adapted ‘Alex’ for the stage as a one-man show, currently touring with Robert Bathurst, which we saw last Friday at the Royal Theatre, Northampton. The show ingeniously combined Bathurst’s performance with animated characters from the cartoon, projected on an assorted series of screens around the stage (the second week running where projected animations threatened to steal the show). Robert Bathurst’s interaction with his two-dimensional co-stars (for whom he provided all the voices) was very slick. It was also interesting to see the integration of the four-frame gags from the strip cartoon with over-arching plot and characters development (also so effectively achieved by Harry Venning and David Ramsden in the ‘Clare in the Community radio series, reviewed here in January 2007 and December 2007). ‘Alex’ reminded me a lot of Radio 4’s excellent ‘Weak at the Top’ sitcom by Guy Browning – though I think Alexander Armstrong’s John Weak was slightly more cynically ruthless. Great fun.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

14 November 2008

Saturday was Graham Tear’s penultimate appearance as conductor of the Northampton Symphony Orchestra. After seven years on the podium Graham is stepping down, to be replaced in the New Year by Alexander Walker. Our programme on Saturday was an ambitious one but the orchestra rose to the occasion. Elgar’s Second Symphony is a long and complex piece: when we started to rehearse in September, I wasn’t convinced we were going to get to grips with it. I think we really benefited from the different perspectives of the four conductors who worked with us on the symphony as their audition piece. By the time we reached the concert it felt like the orchestra understood the work well and I think we gave a good account of it. I enjoyed Walton’s ‘Johannesburg Festival Overture’ which opened the concert, at St Matthew’s Church in Northampton, and I was pleased to be able to enjoy Lucy Parham’s impressive performance of Ravel’s ‘Piano Concerto in G’ from the audience – it’s a fiendishly difficult piece but the slow movement, in particular, is beautiful.

‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ apapted for the stage by Clive Francis

14 November 2008

Last Friday we were at the Royal Theatre, Northampton, to see ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ with Peter Egan as Holmes and Philip Franks as Watson. It was a very enjoyable evening but the star of the show was undoubtedly the set. The stage was dominated by two open pages of an enormous book, onto which a variety of pictures, animation and text was projected. As the pages appeared to turn over, using the sort of animation you see in an e-book, we dived further into the story – looking out of the window of 221B Baker Street, racing across Dartmoor or recoiling from the rapidly advancing silhouette of the hound. While most of the acting happened in front of the pages, back-lighting was used occasionally to reveal actors behind (or within) the book. It was a very inventive and effective mix of technology and live action. Unfortunately, I don’t think the production had really settled on whether or not to play it for laughs. It reminded me at times of the wonderful Patrick Barlow stage adaptation of ‘The Thirty Nine Steps’ – particularly with just three actors playing all the subsidiary parts. But, whereas ‘The Thirty Nine Steps’ was entirely tongue in cheek (and very funny), ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ seemed to veer between melodrama and spoof. Franks’ Watson was a little too much in the Nigel Bruce, bumbling buffoon, line for me. And I was particularly puzzled to see Egan holding his violin and bow in the wrong hands – was he doing this for a bet or were we actually watching a mirror image? Good fun and visually stunning but we came out humming the set.

Thursday, November 06, 2008

'Night Must Fall' by Emlyn Williams

6 November 2008

Torrential rain last Saturday deprived the Woburn bonfire of our company. Instead we made the short journey to Toddington to see a performance of Emlyn Williams' 'Night Must Fall' by the Toddington Amateur Dramatic Society (TADS). TADS operates from its own 75-seat theatre and has just secured a grant of £50,000, from the Landfill Communities Fund of the Waste Recycling Group, which will fund a major programme of refurbishment. 'Night Must Fall' is a psychological thriller written in 1935 in which the focus is more on the mind of the killer rather than on a 'whodunnit' plot. This makes it a fairly ambitious undertaking for an amateur company - added to which it is quite a long play - but the TADS production was very impressive with some outstanding individual performances.

About Me

Since September 2005 Robin Simpson has been Chief Executive of Voluntary Arts, which provides a universal voice for approximately 63,000 voluntary arts groups, across the UK and Ireland, involving more than 10 million participants in creative cultural activities. A keen amateur French horn player, Robin is currently a member of the Northampton Symphony Orchestra. Robin is a perennial ballroom dancing student, a frequent theatre-goer, an enthusiastic reader of contemporary fiction, an insatiable consumer of classical and world music and a keen blogger at www.culturalplayingfield.org and www.culturaldessert.blogspot.com